The Story of Albanian Movie Posters

The Albanian cinema had its bloom during communism period. Cinema was used as powerful propaganda tool that time. Kinostudio, the Albania National Center of Cinematography has produced more than 700 films between 1947- 2012, especially in the years 70-80 were produced 75-85 movies per year. Some of the best profesionals in the field were working in the Kinostudio.
This time we will bring here the history of posters of Albanian movies: who were the designers and what is the art behind them. The article is written by the blogger Neven Udovicic, who is an artist himself, and is studying cinema art and design.

History of Kinostudio

'Tana' (1958), designed by Namik Prizreni

Soviet-built Kinostudio 'New Albania' opened in Tirana in 1952, and in the next 39 years produced 232 fiction features, thousands of documentaries, newsreels and animated films. At that time owning a TV was a luxury, so attendance of 450 Albanian indoor and outdoor movie theaters was counted in millions. One person attended an average of ten films per year—in a grim reality, cinema was a welcome distraction. At the same time, foreign influences on Albanian cinema ware extremely limited—the only films that could be shown were productions by the Soviet Union and China. Interestingly, a number of Albanian films were also regularly screened in China, gaining big success and popularity.

A booming industry needs its workforce, so students were allowed to study film-making in like-minded regimes of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. That soon brought Albania her first movie directors, along with a new wave of actors and actresses. Results came quickly: the first New Albania fiction feature Scandeberg (a historic epic about the 14th century warrior who held off the Turkish occupation until his death) went on to win a prize at the Cannes film festival in 1954.

Cinematic output kept increasing in the following decades with varying levels of regime influences. Two dramas—A Tale from the Past (1987) and Strings for a Violin (1988), produced after Hoxha's death in 1985, signaled a move towards individual-based themes, something unthinkable of years before.

The regime eventually came to an end. "New Albania" didn't survive the transition to democracy and closed its door in 1991, leaving filmmakers without work and reducing cinema production to a trickle. Since then, Albania's cinema output counts around half a dozen of films annually, mainly copies of Western-genres, while theaters (and audiences) prefer Hollywood production. This is something I can easily relate to living in Croatia (a country that shares a similar history with Albania).

Guximtarët/The Brave Ones (1970) designed by Bujar Zajmi

Although many people reject their cinematic history today as one long ideological indoctrination, films from that period became part of the collective memory of Albanians. They are also a valuable material for scholars and filmmakers trying to understand how authoritarian regimes wield power.

A still from Tomka dhe shokët e tij/Tomka and his friends (1977).

Poster art

A fortunate outcome of the closed regime are neatly organized film archives, which include film stills, press books, musical scores and posters. Upon the anticipated release of a motion picture, the film's production designer was enlisted to create unique poster art. The classic subjects these posters dealt with were good triumphing over evil, heroic anti-fascist war, economic reconstruction, ridiculing old ways of living and love stories in a socialist-realist key.

Like movies, poster art was also shaped by the regime: examined of any unwanted subliminal messages, they had to be painted in a photo-realist, figurative style—portraits of main characters were a must. While Polish and Cuban posters we know from this era are often abstract and full of symbolism, this offers an explanation why that wasn’t the case in Albania. Still, these gifted artists managed to make the best of the situation and visualize movies in a creative, eye-catching way, with vividly colored illustrations and creative typography. Apart from their artistic merits, it's hard to look at these hand-made images today and not feel nostalgic for some distant times.

A short period of liberalization in culture that happened between 1968 and 1973 brought more impressionistic and subjective posters that borrowed a lot from Italian and French cinema design, along with elements of Russian Constructivism (posters for Odiseja e tifozave and Horizonte te hapura are good examples of this).

Some of the most notable artists from that era were: Sali Allmuça, Arben Basha, Ksenofon Dilo, Myrteza Fushekati, Grigor Ikonomi, Azis Karalliu, Bujar Luca, Kleo Nini, Namik Prizreni, Alush Shima, Dhimitër Theodhori, Astrit Tota, Ilia Xhokaxhi and Shyqyri Sako. Three of them—Azis Karalliu, Kleo Nini and Shyqyri Sako—managed to visit the 2016 exhibition in Tirana, with Mr. Sako even sharing a several anecdotes about the making of posters and hurdles with the censorship.

Times have changed and it probably comes as no surprise that posters in Albania are no longer made the same way—designers now replicate Hollywood, using film stills as main visuals, trying to get audiences in theaters.

The original article here